Merchandising on the Web and OffWritten by Marcia Yudkin
Now that I have several new products coming out in succession, I've been thinking a lot about how best to feature them at my Web site. My thoughts have turned to how supermarkets and department stores highlight certain products, and I've found useful analogies between catching attention of a customer wheeling a cart up and down aisles and a shopper on Web.Here are some merchandising techniques you'll find in bricks-and- mortars stores and their counterparts on Web: 1. New products. In stores, these often smack you in eye when you first walk in. On Web, popular sites feature new products in a prominent spot on home page. 2. Seasonal items. My local supermarket places these at ends of aisles and in a special interior aisle set aside for barbecue supplies in summer, Halloween candy in fall and rock salt in winter. On Web, they often are featured on home page but not centrally, getting less of a spotlight than new products. 3. Combinations of items. In department stores, you'll often see signs saying, "Buy three for only $25." Amazon.com is currently promoting book titles in this way, bundling two related titles together for an appealing discount, making sales of those items jump. 4. Non-traditional combinations. In supermarkets, instead of simply putting fruit with fruit and condiments with condiments, this involves putting caramel and piecrusts next to apples and lemons on top of fish counter. On Web, this seems feasible at sites selling more than one kind of merchandise.
| | Don't Make It PersonalWritten by John Colanzi
Most of us have an inherent need to be liked. We want to be nice guys or gals and it upsets us when we receive angry emails or flames.Well if you're going to do business online you're going to have to learn to deal with them. No matter how nice you are, or how many people you try to help, flames will come. Sometimes you'll receive them because something you've said is misunderstood. Sometimes you'll receive them because someone’s forgotten they're on your list. You just have to learn to roll with punches. You have to toughen your hide and take them in stride. You'll even receive some from small group of online marketers who go out of their way to be rude and obnoxious. You can't make it personal. As an online marketer, you don't make any sales if you don't get word out about what you have to offer. Sadly there are some marketers who want net to be a one way street.
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